


Psycho Pass: Fanfic Bootcamp

by SoelleKhiss



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Pacific Rim, Psycho-Pass, Star Wars
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction Bootcamp, Gen, Writing Contest, creative writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 12:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15885807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoelleKhiss/pseuds/SoelleKhiss
Summary: WattPad had a super cool contest where fanfiction authors were invited to take a fandom through seven different missions in a bid to be declared Supreme Overlord. The contest was to promote fanfiction and test the writing skills of the participants, as well as their love of their favorite fandoms.I strongly considered posting only the four winning entries that earned me the title of Supreme Overlord, but I thought it would be more authentic to post all seven prompts and all seven mission projects, despite my love for some and wrinkled nose for others. Doing so paints a very accurate picture of the contest and the great fun of the event. Enjoy Psycho Pass fans.





	1. Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Write a Drabble about an original character experiencing your favorite fandom world/universe for the first time. Word limit: 100 EXACTLY!

“I don’t know, Tokyo,” the Navy SEAL mumbled. “Don’t seem right. Sibyl System keeps good men on a short leash. Makes my balls itch. Freedom ain’t a number.”

The criticism was a fair assessment, but the Enforcer refused to acknowledge it. “The name’s Kogami.”

“I’ve seen your file. Almost as thick as mine,” the soldier said grinning. “Moved around a lot as a kid. Took a tendency to calling people by where they was from.” He extended his hand in friendship. “Name’s Kentucky. Like the bourbon. Let’s gear up. I’ll show you the color of freedom: red, white, and blue.”


	2. Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Write a pure fanfiction story. Take any beloved character from the fandom of your choice and place him/her in a high intensity—life or death—situation and end with a cliffhanger. Here’s the catch: you can only use narration, no verbal dialogue. Word limit: 500 EXACTLY!

Kogami watched pensively from the control room door as Kagari shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over the victim’s naked body. Despite his calm, deliberate motions, she wailed in terror and begged for mercy, hiding her bruised and swollen face in her hands. The crime inflicted, a brutal, sexual assault, was enough to enrage the Enforcer, but her tears were the force of nature that broke any resolve to the law left within him. 

He was not alone in those violent thoughts. 

Kagari’s fiery orange hair accurately captured the younger man’s mood. When he turned to Kogami, the question of insubordination was evident in his eyes. 

Their wristcoms alerted simultaneously with an incoming call from Inspector Ginoza. In response to Kagari’s unspoken question, Kogami turned off his device. With a sardonic grin, Kagari followed his example. Inside the facility’s refinery walls, glitched communications due to interference was a plausible response to their failure to reply.

There were no cymatic scanners inside the refinery. The most recent psycho pass of the perpetrator, taken by an outside perimeter reader, registered over 200. It was enough to render Sybil’s immediate judgement of paralyzation and apprehension, despite the heinous nature of the crime. A serial rapist, Norio Fujioka deserved much worse.

Industrial drones worked in the environmental conditions deemed too hazardous for humans. With the blast furnaces working around the clock, it must have been 120 degrees. Sweating profusely, Kogami loosened his tie as he squeezed between the metal labyrinth of support struts and sooty conveyor belts. 

His hand brushed the side of a crucible returning from the molds. There was no molten material in it, but the sides were still hot enough to burn his skin. The smell of charring flesh was pungent.

Weaving through this perilous obstacle course, Kagari abruptly stopped. He held up a closed fist and one finger to signal sighting their prey. 

Kogami saw the suspect escaping into a drainage vent beneath the main conveyor belt. There were maintenance tunnels below, and if they didn’t apprehend him, a sexual predator was going to get away.

With murderous intent in his eyes, Kagari bolted in that direction. Kogami caught him by the sleeve, pulling him away from the recessed shaft. 

To silence any protest, the Enforcer pointed upward to the conveyor belt bringing molten iron from the blast furnace. When Kagari cocked his head to the side, not understanding, he then pointed to the emergency button that would halt the conveyor belt and open the overhanging crucibles, releasing that molten metal and slag into the shaft where Fujioka was trying to escape.

Kogami holstered his Dominator. His conscience was clear. There was a reason Lady Justice carried a sword. Justice could not be one sided, and where it could not be given, it had to be taken. Giving Kagari a firm pat on the shoulder, he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away. There was a reason Lady Justice wore a blindfold, too.


	3. In the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Write a flash fiction incorporating a song you love. Use only the canon material of your fandom. One last catch, the very last thing your character says must be some of the lyrics of the song of your choice. Use it wisely for impact as the character’s last words. The universe stays the same, the character remains the same, but the current or future reality can be altered. Word limit: 750-800.
> 
> The song used was Skillet’s Not Gonna Die

There were few things worse then getting a song stuck in your head. Unless it was an unauthorized song, marked illegal by the Sybil System. Haunted by the defiant lyrics, Enforcer Shinya Kogami struggled to concentrate as he hid inside a subway security booth.

“Kogami!” Ginoza shouted over the wristcom. “Get back to operations.”

“With Kagari down, I’m the only one who can take this guy out, Gino.”

“Inspector Tsunemori, have you found Kogami?”

“No, sir,” Akane lied. “I lost sight of him near the maintenance doors.”

“Find him, and when you do, shoot him with your Dominator.”

Akane glared at Kogami through narrowed eyes. “Give me one good reason not to follow that order.”

“Because Iwasaki is a madman who took out a bus full of school kids to prove a point to the Ministry of Welfare. If we don’t take him out now, he’ll find other followers, and they might take out an even bigger target. Do you want that on your conscience, Inspector?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Before Kagari went down, he disabled the controls. Iwasaki’s buddies are trapped in that subway car. He’s probably headed straight for them. _Unless_ we give him a better target.”

Akane glared at him. “You want to use me as bait again?”

Kogami shrugged. “The man’s ego is enormous. He won’t waste the opportunity to kill an MWPSB Inspector.”

Letting her head fall back on her shoulders, Akane closed her eyes. “Why do I let you talk me into these things?” She turned away him. “You better be there.”

“You know I will be,” ~~he said, retreating into the shadows~~.

Akane walked out onto the subway platform and looked around the empty terminal. “This is Inspector Tsunemori. Is anyone there?” She tapped her wristcom insistently. “Anyone? I have one Enforcer down and the other in the wind. Inspector Ginoza, please come in.”

As Kogami suspected, the bait was too enticing. Lurking on a rooftop above the platform, Iwasaki stepped out of the shadows. Hidden from view by a telecommunications dish, Kogami pointed his Dominator at the wanted man’s back.

“ _Crime Coefficient 421,”_ said the directional voice _. “Enforcement action required. Enforcement mode: Lethal Eliminator. The trigger safety is now released. Please aim carefully and eliminate the target._ ”

“Stand where you are, Kogami,” Ginoza ordered.

Startled by the the Inspector’s voice, Iwasaki spun around to face Kogami. The terrorist still had a bloody knife clasped in his hand. 

Holding his hands up in surrender, Kogami grinned at him. “Iwasaki, you have my deepest sympathies.” 

Akane fired her Dominator from the platform below. The reconfigured weapon pulsed fiercely in the darkness, rendering a fatal judgment. Iwasaki’s body was eviscerated, the lower half left to quiver on the cold concrete. “Inspector Ginoza, Enforcer Kogami was—”

“You can tell me all about it in your report, Inspector Tsunemori, which I want on my desk within the hour.”

As punishment for his insubordination, Kogami found himself in the stress tank, a section of isolation cells beneath the infirmary. Slouched on the floor, he tossed a small red ball that the doctor had given him against the wall and caught it. “Kagari alight?”

“He hit his head when Ginoza paralyzed him. He might have a concussion. Medical’s keeping him overnight for observation.”

“Bad guys locked up?”

“Iwasaki’s henchmen are all in custody. He’s obviously in the morgue. What’s left of him.”

“Another job well done.”

“Well done? Kogami, Inspector Ginoza is reporting me for allowing you to go rogue. I’m facing a performance review.”

“It’ll never stick, Inspector,” he said, throwing the ball harder. “A crew of murderous anarchists are off the streets, and the MWPSB is going to punish the cop who made that happen? Not likely.”

“Why do you do this?” Before the tears could fall from her eyes, Akane turned her back on him. “Why do you always have to do things the hard way?”

“In the end, Inspector, we all stand alone. We’re not heroes,” he replied. “Just cops doing the job nobody wants.”

It was not the answer she wanted from him. Leaving her tears as a stinging condemnation, she stormed away from the cell. There was no hesitation in her retreat.

“Akane!” 

She disappeared through the security door. When it slammed shut behind her, the facility lights went off, leaving Kogami in the dark. Alone.

When his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he threw the ball against the opposite wall, but made no attempt to retrieve it. “This is how it feels when you’re bent and broken. This is how it feels when your dignity’s stolen. When everything you love is leaving. You hold on to what you believe in.” Staring at the door, he would wait for her to return. “Don’t you give up on me. You’re everything I need.” 


	4. Fallen Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FOURTH ROUND WINNER!
> 
> Write a dialogue between good vs. evil, a good old battle of wits. Hee’s the catch, it must be a crossover. So any good/heroic character from any fandom versus any bad/villainy character from any fandom. To clarify you do a crossover between two different fandoms. Word max: 1000-1200.

He was falling.

Kogami’s body jerked violently in the throes of a nightmare. Only it was not a dream. It was the recent recollection of falling twenty stories into a maintenance shaft in pursuit of a suspect. Had it not been for the network of cables and remnant wiring, he wouldn’t be breathing, which he did now with great difficulty, trapped in a swinging cocoon of tangled wires that ensnared him. 

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and backey! Oh my, your leg looks bent and shaky!”

Kogami recognized the sardonic voice of his quarry, but before he could focus his sight on him, agonizing sparks of white light exploded behind his eyelids. He cried out as searing pain lanced through his fractured leg, pushing him back towards unconsciousness.

“ _Elevated area stress level warning_ ,” his wristcom reported. “ _A psycho pass above the regulation value has been detected in Piero Junction. All on-duty inspectors and available enforcers are immediately required...SIGNAL INTERRUPTED—_ ”

Brought back to consciousness by the urgent alert, Kogami stared fifteen feet down into a malevolent kabuki mask, but this was no costume. Beneath mottled green hair, a pale white face grinned up at him. Red stain was smeared across its lips and cheeks in the grotesque semblance of a grin. “Joker.”

“Enforcer Shinya Kogami.” Tearing a cymatic scanner from the wall, the felon tapped it lightly against his palm and brought it up to his ear to listen as if it were a phone.

“How do you know my name?”

“You talked in your delirium, especially when I was yanking your leg. I think it’s broken. If it wasn’t, it is now.”

Kogami struggled to free himself, but was he held securely in the cobweb of cables binding him.

“What does this little gadget do? I keep seeing them all over this anal little city.”

“It’s a cymatic scanner controlled by the Sybil System. It measures your inclination towards criminal behavior.”

“Shut up!” Joker gasped. “No wonder those sirens kept going off everywhere. I am a professed narcissist, you see, tending towards extreme overachievement.”

“And extreme violence.”

“You noticed!” 

“There were 50 people aboard that plane!”

“After a 13-hour flight, they needed to be put out of their misery.” Joker slammed the scanner against the wall. Sparks flew from it. “What’s this 950? Seems awfully low for a criminal IQ.“

“Your psycho pass is three times what’s needed for Sybil to render a judgement of execution.”

“Execution? Is this how you do it?” Joker retrieved the Dominator laying on the floor.

“ _Dominator Portable Psychological Diagnosis and Suppression System has been activated. You are not a valid user. The trigger will remain locked_.”

“Boring!” Joker threw the Dominator into a trash heap behind him. He held up the scanner to examine Kogami. “Hmm, only 290. Didn’t anyone tell you bigger is always better?”

“Sounds like you’re compensating.”

The manic smile faded. “You sound like _him_. The monster under my bed. The _bat_ in my belfry. I don’t need to compensate for anything. My insanity is unconditional.”

“A condition of insecurity.”

Joker grabbed Kogami’s foot and yanked on his broken leg until he cried out. “The condition of man is a condition of war...everyone against everyone. That’s what Thomas Hobbes says anyway. I don’t want to fight everyone. I just want to be in charge.”

“In charge of who lives and who dies?”

“We all die, Enforcer. Nature dictates that sad little reality. I just give nature a nudge to bring about the inevitable faster.”

“To amuse yourself.”

“Is there any greater entertainment than to watch men fight and die over their empty pockets. Over empty ideals that are not worth the paper they’re scribbled on.” Joker held his hand out, staring at the scanner, in a mockery of Hamlet. “Justice is founded in the rights bestowed by nature upon man.” He glared at Kogami. “Empty words spoken by some long dead hypocrite, written on some empty building, harboring people with souls as empty as my bank account. The nature of man is that he is a beast.”

“Even wolves have laws.”

“Which is why I shun the pack to howl at the moon all by myself. You want to howl at the moon, too, but you won’t because it’s against the rules. But whose rules? Surely not nature who dictates the strongest and fittest survive, and the weak and infirmed take a dive.”

“Your sentiment’s endearing.”

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy. Cold, indifferent apathy, and from behind this fractured mirror, hard men like you and I reach into the world and mold it to our will through our deeds.” The Joker pulled a switchblade from his purple coat and, climbing onto a stack of wooden pallets, held the blade against Kogami’s throat. When the Enforcer did not flinch or beg for his life, Joker whispered, “Not caring about yourself is the first step to not caring about anything, unless there is something to keep you anchored in the maelstrom. What keeps you anchored, Kogami?” Leaning closer, he sniffed the collar of Kogami’s shirt. “ _She_ smells very pretty.”

Kogami flung his head in a savage headbutt, which sent the criminal sprawling back to the wet floor. Laughter was not the reaction he expected, but that’s what came—uncontrollable, raucous laughter that went on for several minutes. “Wasn’t it also Hobbes who said that there is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of the mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense. So much for your apathy.”

Spitting blood, Joker wiped his broken nose with the back of his hand and stumbled into view. “Why do you think I prefer to live in a world of ghosts?”

“You’ll never be free.”

“Society is the governance of every culture. As surely as Sybil is your mistress, Society is her big sis, who jerks the chain about your neck and keeps you gagging for more: a better car, a bigger house, more people to accept your friend requests. The only real freedom you have is breaking your own neck at a time of your choosing. There are few brave enough to break the chain to live free as I do. But then, Society labels you a criminal, a miscreant to be cast out as Lucifer was cast from Heaven. In the end, we are both fallen angels, Kogami.”

The Joker drew back his hand and threw the switchblade. Kogami closed his eyes and held his breath. He felt a vibration above him as the blade cut across the cable. He heard the knife fall, clattering as it hit the floor. With a loud snapping, the cable gave way beneath his weight, and Kogami fell. Gasping in pain, the Enforcer sat up on his elbow and stared as Joker retreated into the shadows. “What keeps you anchored?” 

“My rabid obsession with the night...and a bat. Sayonara, lover boy. Hope she’s worth it.” Hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, the Joker walked, undaunted, into the darkness. “If ever you’re in Gotham, give me a ring. We’ll paint the town red. _With blood.”_


	5. Gipsy Enforcer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FIFTH ROUND WINNER!
> 
> Write about an event that creates an alternate universe for the fandom of your choice. Was it a natural or man made disaster? A Disease? What even created the alternate universe for your fandom? Word limit: 1000-1200.

Enforcer Shinya Kogami grit his teeth as pain radiated from his tailbone to the base of his skull. Pushing against the weight on his back, he sat up on all fours and struggled to move beneath the shattered remains of his desk and debris from the partial collapse of the ceiling. “You alright?” He stared down into the face of Shion Karanomari, Division 1’s system analyst.

“Shinya, is this what it takes to get you on top of me?” she asked with an anxious chuckle. “An earthquake? Deal!” 

“That wasn’t an earthquake,” said a muffled voice from the corner.

“Kagari!” Kogami hurried toward the younger Enforcer, who was trapped beneath a steel girder. He slid to an abrupt halt in front of a gigantic, armored head. “What the hell is that thing?” 

“That’s a Jaeger. It’s a robot.”

It was difficult to gauge the size of the machine from its face, but judging by the breach created from the monstrosity colliding with the building, its dimensions rivaled 20-story skyscrapers. Kogami ran around it, crawling over debris to reach Kagari.

While Kogami raised the heavy girder a few inches, Kagari rolled free. “And that’s the kaiju that body slammed it into the building.” 

The Ministry of Welfare building was in ruins because of the fallen Jaeger, but it had been spared the real violence. Slow-moving, the kaiju walked on six, squat legs, shambling like a lizard. Rows of spikes, large enough to dwarf skyscrapers, covered its scaly back. Nearly 200 feet tall, it moved toward the city center, toppling everything in its path.

Kagari got to his knees, panting to catch his breath. “I’d say it’s a Category III on the Serizawa Scale. Not too big. Not too small. Just right to destroy all of Tokyo.”

“Where’d the damn thing come from?” Kogami asked.

“Seismic activity was recorded in the Pacific last week,” Shion said. “There was talk of a breach. Bet that nightmare crawled out of it.”

“Not exactly our usual perp,” Kogami said. “Something tells me handcuffs aren’t going to fit.”

“Anyone home?” Shion kicked at the Jaeger’s cracked face shield. She gasped, startled when it slid open to reveal the pilot compartment.

Kogami jumped down into the dark cabin and readjusted his balance for the slight incline. Two unmoving figures were strapped into a harness of electronic cables. Blood trickled from their helmets and onto the floor. He checked for a pulse. “They’re dead.”

“So are we, if we don’t get this robot back in the game,” Shion said. Grabbing a portable terminal, she kicked off her heels and jumped down into the compartment and went about the cabin activating control systems. 

As diagnostic screens winked on around him, Kogami felt the vibration of motor functions coming to life. Released from their mechanical tombs, the corpses fell to the floor, and the gigantic Jaeger shuddered. Were it not for the building propping it up, the machine would have been laying on its back as lifeless as its crew.

“Kogami, help me get this armor off.”

“A little respect for the dead, Shion?” Kagari said.

“We can light the incense later. If we don’t do something, every man, woman, and child in this city will die. Who will light the incense for them? Now get down here.” As Shion stripped the dead pilots, she strapped the Enforcers into the flight armor and reattached the control harness. “Helmets on.”

It was an unsettling feeling to step into a dead man’s clothing. Kogami reluctantly put on the helmet before climbing onto the interface platform and locking the boots into the control docks.

“I’m crossing my fingers that you two are drift compatible,” Shion said. She blew a strand of blond hair from her face. “Here we go.”

“ _Gipsy Danger: System initialization complete_ ,” a digital voice announced. “ _Engaging pilot-to-pilot protocol._ _”_

“Get ready. This will be the hard part. The neural handshake.”

“Neural what?” Kogami shared a fearful glance with Kagari. 

“Relax. You boys are going to get to know each other real well in a few seconds. I’m actually jealous.”

Kogami was snatched from reality and found himself drifting through a tumultuous ocean with wave after crashing wave of memories that were not his own. “So that’s what you’re doing when you’re by yourself?” he whispered. “Is that even legal, Kagari?”

Kagari’s face was a mask of indignant embarrassment. “And that’s _who_ you think about all the time? Does Akane know you feel that way about her? If not I can tell her everything.”

“Fair enough,” Kogami sighed. “I’ll keep my mouth shut, if you do the same.”

“Knock it off, you two! Do something. Move your arms. Just do it together in sync. The better you coordinate, the better the Jaeger will respond.”

“Remember that kata, Ko?” Kagari held his right fist up in the air. Kogami mirrored the movements of their combat practice.

“Left and right hemispheres—100% calibrated. Neural handshake is strong and holding at 78%.”

“Shion, you can’t possibly expect Ko and me to fight that thing. Even in a Jaeger. We’re good, but not that good.”

“No, but you can shoot, and it’s going to take both of you to use that gun.” Shion typed furiously on the keypad. “That I-19 plasma cannon works on the same principles as a Dominator—plasma, integrated with electromagnetic fields, on a carrier rail. If I can just get the cannon online with Sybil, we’ll be in business. Stand by.” She punched the enter button, but nothing happened.

“Shion?” Kogami said. 

“Shit! I rerouted the power coupling. Shunted the auxiliary modules. Granted access to the main frame. Come on! Work!” She punched the enter key repeatedly with growing agitation. “Work! It’s our only chance!”

Kogami bowed his head, his burning disappointment reflected in her wrath. “We’ll find another way.”

“ _Emergency Dominator Portable Psychological Diagnosis and Suppression System has been activated. User authentication: Enforcers Shinya Kogami and Shusei Kagari. Affiliation: Criminal Investigation Department. Dominator usage approval confirmed. You both are valid users,”_ said the familiar voice of the oracle _._

“Yes!” Shion hissed.

“Okay,” Kogami said, “now what?”

“You get one shot. Sit up and make it count.”

In unison Kogami and Kagari moved into a tactical position to aim. The Jaeger’s right arm lifted the cannon, while the left hand supported the gun for accuracy. A familiar target reticle came up on the holographic HUDs inside their helmets. “ _The target’s threat judgment has been appraised. Enforcement mode: Destroy Decomposer. Target will be completely annihilated. Please proceed with maximum caution_.”

“Light it up!” Kogami shouted.

The recoil from the cannon pushed the fallen Jaeger farther into the building, causing more structural damage, but the building held. Unerringly, the blast met its target, striking the kaiju in its spiny back. With an anguished roar, the behemoth erupted in a geyser of blue blood and quivering flesh, which was consumed in a ring of white light and flame. 

“Wait til Ginoza hears about this!” Kagari said.

Leaning against the robot’s shoulder, Shion crossed her arms and smiled. “There’s a new face in Division 1.”

Kogami grinned. “Welcome to the MWPSB, Gipsy Enforcer.”


	6. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SIXTH ROUND WINNER!!!
> 
> Write about an original character that travels back in time and change the reality of the canon character(s) in the fandom of your choice. Who is this mysterious original character? What did they do to change the reality? Word limit: 1200-1500.

A magnificent display of fireworks canvased the night skies above the Oso Private Academy. It was a climatic conclusion to a festive day filled with feasting and festivities. The student body, their parents and guardians, faculty, and wealthy patrons had gathered to celebrate yet another anniversary for the prestigious all-girls boarding school and to commemorate the grand opening of a new art annex and gallery.

Mi-Yeon Oh watched the explosion of vibrant colors through the blinds of an unfurnished art room before returning to the section of tatami mats that she had laid out on the wooden floor. Dimming the lights, she straightened her black kimono and rearranged the ivory _kanzashi_ hair comb to smooth her hair. She then carefully knelt down beside the portable hearth to check the temperature before turning down the heat. The water in the pot was boiling, and she needed it to cool before her special guest arrive.

Distracted, she focused on the one reason that had brought her across time to this specific moment. _Shinya Kogami_. The name rolled from the tongue like poetry. It was a name that gave her strength and hope, even as cancer ravaged her body. She smiled, thinking of him, hearing his voice. He had been her bastion to fight through a crucible of chemo-therapy treatments, each worse than the last, and the terrible weakness and pain that came as a consequence.

After eighteen years, her life could be measured in the span of days, maybe hours. By all accounts, voiding out the last eight months of her illness, it had been a very good life, filled with love and achievement. So much so that it could not be overshadowed by the cancer and its terminal prognosis. Still, the life she had lived was not hers. Her life, as it was, belonged to him, from the moment the MWPSB Enforcer decided to intervene and rescue her and the other children from a madman, holding them hostage in a mental care facility. Her cancer was the result of being subjected to unauthorized drugs under the guise of lowering her crime coefficient, which was already within regulation value.

On that fateful day, she was no longer an orphan, alone in the world. At the tender age of five, Mi-Yeon left the Daigo Clinic with a new lease on life, a new mother, and a new big brother, whom she cherished more than life itself. So it only seemed fair that the life he had purchased that day with his courage should be sacrificed to save him.

_Time_. Such a relative thing. With training, it could be manipulated as any other element. With her life waning, Mi-Yeon devoted herself to gaining mastery over it and succeeded. She quietly made all the final arrangements of her old life and traveled across the threshold to correct the past. It would be days before her body was discovered, and by then she would have accomplished her task or died trying.

Through a careful, deliberate meditation that pierced the veil of time and bent it to her will, she had traveled back nineteen years to the moment when everything went tragically wrong for her big brother. This was the night that his subordinate Enforcer Mitsuru Sasayama was abducted while in pursuit of a suspect. He would be tortured and killed, his body turned to plastic then grotesquely posed and put on display in a public place. Kogami would be the one to find him, and the resulting trauma would send his psycho pass into a tailspin, clouding his hue and pushing his crime coefficient beyond regulation, transforming a good and just man into a latent criminal, societal refuse.

The reckless, high-strung Sasayama would die eventually, sooner if not later, but he would not die tonight. Nor would Abele Kirino, a kindly patron of the Oso Private Academy, be brutally murdered. His daughter, Toko Kirino, would not find the body of her father or be plunged into madness because one of the men responsible for this bloody chain of events was already dead. 

As Mi-Yeon arranged the tools for the tea ceremony, she glanced at the corpse slumped in the corner of the room. The brilliant lights of the fireworks flashed across his eyes, which were wide open despite their inability to see.

“You are a paradox, lovely and seductive, but lethal like Deadly Nightshade.” Shogo Makishima stared at her intently from the darkness beyond the doorway. He was known for having a light step, and Mi-Yeon had not heard him moving in the corridor. “Kozoburo Toma was one of my favorite playthings. He had a unique set of skills that will be difficult to replace.”

“There would have been others like him. Lost, broken, easy prey for your philosophy,” Mi-Yeon replied, not looking up. “Masatake Mido, Toyohisa Senguji, Rikaku Oryo. They would fail to adequately entertain you and would all die as a result. Just as you will fail in your bid to unmask the Sybil System. You will also die, a victim of your own intellectual conceit.” Mi-Yeon used the frisk to bring the green tea to a light froth and then let it settle. She bowed deeply to Makishima as he cautiously assumed the _seiza_ position before her. Wiping the tea bowl with the ceremonial cloth, Mi-Yeon presented the tea to him on the floor before bowing once again according to strict tradition.

“A formal tea ceremony to commemorate my death. Tell me, was it noble?”

“You were on your knees, as you are now,” she said, cruelty on her voice. “While not noble, it was merciful. Better than you deserved.”

Makishima bowed to her and retrieved the bowl. Drinking from it, he wiped the edge with the ceremonial cloth and set it back down. As Mi-Yeon reached for it, he deftly opened his straight razor with one hand and in a clean stroke, cut her throat. “There, there,” he whispered, cradling her slender body in his arms. He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I’m afraid I’ve cut your carotid artery, and when I remove my hand, you’re going to bleed out and die, as all beautiful things eventually do, even deadly ones.”

Mi-Yeon smiled at him. “We will die together.” She held up an ivory hair comb in her trembling hand. There was blood and skin in the teeth of the ornate, Japanese _kushi_.

He glanced at the even row of scratches on the back of his hand. “I’m barely bleeding. These scratches can’t even count as a flesh wound.”

“It was that arrogance that allowed him to hunt you down and kill you.” Mi-Yeon grinned weakly, her mission across time nearly over. “Look closer with those ever discerning eyes and see that your fate has been sealed.”

Makishima callously pushed her from his lap and snatched the comb from her hand. He ran his fingers over the teeth of the comb. As she lay on the floor, blood pooling beneath her head, staining the tatami mats, she saw grim recognition in his eyes. “These teeth are made from the spines of a _fugu_. Even after death the spines of a puffer fish are still quite deadly. Touché.” Caressing his lips as the fatal dosage of tetrodotoxin worked its way into his bloodstream, he calmly asked, “Why have you done this?”

“Because you are so ugly, and he is so beautiful. He deserves a better life, while you don’t deserve to live.”

“ _If he was once as beautiful as now he is hideous, and still turned on his Maker, well may he be the source of every woe_. I never felt that Dante was fair in his depiction of the fallen angel Lucifer. What made him ugly was that he disagreed with his God and would not submit. He was a radical, but he lost; so the records paint him as ugly because history and its fallacies are written by the victors. I disagreed with Sibyl, so that makes me ugly?”

“Yes, you stole his life and changed the man he was meant to be.” Mi-Yeon was cold, shivering as death crept through the pores of her skin and between her fingers. “ _Day of wrath and doom impending. David’s word with Sibyl’s blending, Heaven and earth in ashes ending_.”

“The _Dies Irae_ —Day of Wrath. A requiem and a reckoning. How fitting.” Makishima pulled Mi-Yeon back into his embrace, and with the warmth of a long lost lover kissed her lips. “Before you die, tell me the name of the man who brought you across time to alter the future.”

On her dying breath, Mi-Yeon whispered, “Shinya Kogami.” 

“Everyone is alone. Everyone is empty,” Makishima whispered, finding it difficult to breathe. Head bowed over her in his final moments, he kissed her lips a final time. “Everyone except you.”


	7. Stolen Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SEVENTH ROUND WINNER
> 
> Take one canon character, from any fandom of your choice, then throw that character into a different fandom (crossover) that you think would make a good alternative for his/her current one. 
> 
> Use all the canon material of this new fandom universe that became your character’s new world.
> 
> Also important, is to write your character as ‘in character’, meaning you may not deviate from his/her canon personality, man ever is, or traits. Word limit: 1500-2000.

There was a peculiar scent to death: a bittersweet fragrance, reminiscent of almonds and wild flowers. It was unmistakable.

Paralyzed from the neck down, the TIE Fighter pilot lying on the medical gurney was making his last run, and it was nearly over. Running a nervous hand over the Corellian bloodstripe on the seam of his pants, Shinya Kogami bowed his head in surrender. There was nothing more he could do. Nervously thumbing the restraint over his DL-44 blaster, he stood up and tapped his foot against the frame of a nearby cot.

A pale face rose from the blankets and glared at him from beneath a fiery mane of red hair. "What is it?" As recent memory and recollection collided, Rue Donne threw aside the blankets and hurried to her brother's side. "Treyven!" Dressed in a black Imperial officer's uniform, with no designating insignia, she looked like a specter moving in the darkness. "Trey, no!"

Kogami stepped outside into the medical wing's vacant main corridor. The Imperial garrison was little more than an empty shell. Abandoned during a preemptive strike by the Rebellion Alliance, the base had then fallen prey to scavengers that had picked it clean for what little the Empire had left behind in its hurry to escape.

Hands on his hips, Kogami looked around at the assortment of supplies he could muster from his own store of medical goods, including a few leftover crates from a recent run to the Tatooine system. While he was well stocked, the equipment and goods were not the necessary equipment needed to save the kid after his TIE Advanced crashed on the rocky surface of Bolle, a nondescript moon in the shadow of an even more nondescript planet, Ebra. It was regrettable, as was the lost of any life.

Kogami lit a spice cigar. His nerves were frayed, and he needed to take the edge off. Inhaling deeply, he leaned against the frame of an observation window overlooking the docking platform in front of the garrison. His YT-1300 Transport, the _Sybil_ , was docked beneath a rocky outcrop on the far side.

"Shepherd 1, come in," said a female voice.

"Sybil, not now," Kogami grumbled into his comlink.

"But you should know—"

"What I need to know is our status," Kogami interrupted her. "I want off this rock as soon as you can lift off."

"Hull integrity: 54%. Shields 11%. Inertial dampers: offline. Main engines: offline. Primary life-support: offline. Are you noticing a basic theme?"

"How soon can we leave?" Kogami exhaled spice smoke in the window and narrowed his eyes against the sting.

"Twenty-three hours."

"Make it twelve."

"Repairs would go a lot faster if you brought your choobs back to the ship and helped out."

"Copy that," Kogami whispered.

"You're not going anywhere, traitor!" Rue shouted. She emerged from the room with a heavy blaster in her hands. "I know who you are! Lieutenant Shinya Kogami, Veerpal Squadron, First Fleet. You were a TIE pilot like my brother until you deserted. You can't hide behind that bloodstripe. You're the one who should be lying dead in that room, not him. This is _all_ your fault. I should kill you where you stand."

Kogami threw his hands up in surrender. "How is this my fault? I'm minding my business in a perfectly open expanse of space, and then you and your brother come barreling out of hyperspace and crash into my ship. For a pair of Imperial bounty hunters, you sure have a funny way of apprehending your quarry."

The blaster lowered as she leaned back against the wall for support. "We're not bounty hunters," she whispered, "and we're certainly not Imperial. Not anymore."

"You two weren't tracking me?" Kogami took one last drag on the cigar before crushing it beneath his boot heel. "It was you two who were making a run for it. I just happened to get in the way. And in the usual Imperial fashion: it's blast first and sort the bodies later."

"You're still a traitor." Rue slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor with the blaster across her lap.

"Looks like we both are." Kogami sank down on his haunches. "Was it your brother's idea to run?"

Rue nodded, too emotional to speak. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "If I hadn't wasted all that time arguing with him, he might be alive. Now all I can do is bury him."

"Better get started," Kogami said, glancing at the dark skies outside. "A storm's moving in."

# # #

Bolle was a mineral-deficient rock that lacked any value for colonization. The moon might have made a decent hideout for smugglers, but the Imperial taint made it as undesirable as its stony terrain, which made even the simplest of tasks difficult, including the digging of a grave.

Kogami poured a duracrete mixture into the raised mausoleum of rocks that he had piled onto the boy's body to make up for the moon's lack of soil. His back ached from moving the rocks into place, even with Rue's help. Tossing the container over the ridge into an abyss, he grabbed the dead pilot's helmet and rested it on a stake at the head of the grave as a tombstone. "I heard him call you Rue. Is that short for something?"

"Rowena. When we were little Treyven couldn't say it correctly, so he just called me Rue. The nickname stuck."

Reaching into his pocket, Kogami grabbed a coin, flipped it, and without looking at whether it landed on heads or tails, he pushed it into the quick-drying duracrete. "Doaba ol'val tru."

"What was that?" Rue asked.

"Socorran superstition. For good luck." He turned from the grave to find her hunched down a few feet away, running her fingers absently in the thin soil. "Why did you leave the Empire?"

"I wanted to go into a line of work where I could protect people. That's why I joined the Imperial Navy in the first place. To become a pilot. But the Emperor stole that glory with his greed for power and cruelty. My superiors were calling people hostile, when we were the real hostiles, overrunning planets, decimating their populations, and enslaving anyone who somehow managed to survive. He'll continue destroying the galaxy to bring it under his heel, and there isn't a damn thing anybody can do about it."

She stifled a sob with the back of her hand. "You sound like my brother."

Kogami laid his hand on her shoulder. "Maybe your brother came to his senses like I did, and started thinking for himself for the very first time without all that Imperial propaganda in his head." He stiffened abruptly; his windpipe constricted as if an invisible hand gripped his throat. Gasping for breath, he thumbed the restraint from his blaster and drew the weapon from its holster.

Before he could fire off a round, Rue was on her feet, hand out, fingers splayed wide, and sent him flying 20 feet through the air. He collided with the duracrete wall of a dilapidated motorpool and crashed into a pile of abandoned speeder bike parts. Thunder rumbled overhead, and rain poured from the skies, drenching his face. He felt the coolness on his skin as he passed out.

With the sound of the rain in one ear and Sybil's voice in the other, Kogami came to consciousness. "Shepherd 1, I told you she wasn't to be trusted. She's _ke'dem_."

"Not now, Sybil," Kogami groaned.

"Is your ship talking in your ear again?" Rue asked. "You can tell her to lower the ramp now."

Kogami sat up on his elbows, wincing at the taste of blood in his mouth. He waited until his vision cleared. "She says you're _ke'dem_. It's why she won't let you onboard."

" _Ke'dem_?"

Kogami regarded the girl sitting crosslegged beneath the cockpit of his freighter. She was staring into the falling rain. "In Old Corellian it means condemned. Another way of saying Jedi. That's why you were running, isn't it?"

"The Force is like a drug. The more you use it, the more you want." Rue bowed her head, her shoulders trembling as she cried. "My brother saw a terrible change in me. He wasn't afraid, and that's why he's dead. I'm afraid, and that's why I'm still alive."

"Shepherd 1, we've got incoming Imperial traffic on the docks."

"Can we get away?" Kogami let the urgent need for escape motivate his stiff limbs.

"They'd cut us down before we even got close to the upper atmosphere."

"It's too late to run," Rue said, getting to her feet as a dozen Imperial stormtroopers sprinted toward them.

As they took up defensive positions around the YT-1300, Kogami put his hands up, savoring the last few minutes of his freedom.

A tall, regal figure moved through the ranks of white-on-black armor. Dressed in black robes, the man took little notice of Kogami and walked up to Rue, staring down his long nose at her. She took a knee and bowed before him. "Master Haig?"

"You disappoint me, Rue, after all we've been through in your training."

"I allowed my brother's fears to cloud my judgment. It will not happen again. He's dead."

"By your hand?"

"By his actions." Rue stood up, brushing a strand of red hair from her face.

"Who's he?"

"No one. A fringe transport pilot that my brother hired to transport us to Socorro. He had no idea what my brother was planning." She spun on Kogami with preternatural speed and, without touching him, knocked the smuggler back into a support strut beneath the ship. "I trust next time you'll thoroughly screen you passengers. Go now, before I change my mind and punish you as you deserve." She hovered over him, her actions concealing the unshed tears of sorrow in her eyes. "Someone out there needs you to protect them, Kogami. Go take back your stolen glory," she whispered. " _Doaba ol'val tru_." As the rain continued to fall in torrents from the dark skies, she left with Haig.

Kogami watched helplessly as the Stormtroopers retreated from beneath his ship. Within moments, the shuttle, a troop transport, and an escort of twelve TIE Advanced fighters withdrew into those dark skies. A few minutes into flight, the shuttle exploded in a violent blast that took out the troop transport and a few of the TIE fighters.

"Sybil?" Kogami said, retreating to the flight ramp as it lowered.

"It's what I've been trying to tell you, flyboy. That girl took a thermal detonator while you and she were collecting med supplies. I tried to warn you. May I make a suggestion?"

He already knew what she was going to say, even as he ran up the ramp and cued the hatch to close. "I'm listening."

"We have enough auxiliary power to at least limp across the upper atmosphere and head to the opposite side of the planet. These Imps might decide you're the one responsible for this mess."

"Why aren't we moving then?"

"Just waiting for you to get your choobs on the flight deck!"

"Can we do this without further damaging the ship?"

"Would you rather stay here and waited for them to—as you like to say: blast first and sort the bodies later?"

"Copy that." Kogami jumped into the flight seat and activated the auxiliary controls. The freighter hovered erratically, tipping her nose against the docking platform before the ship's damaged inertial stabilizers kicked in. Staring into the black plume of smoke where the shuttle had exploded, Kogami watched fiery debris falling from the sky as the TIE Fighters scrambled to avoid being hit by secondary explosions. He reached into his pocket for a coin. Tossing it in the air, he caught it, and without looking to see if it was heads or tails, he put it back in his pocket. "Doaba ol'val tru," he whispered sadly. "Alright Sybil, get us out of here."


End file.
